I trained long and hard for this race. Since the Luang Prabang Ultra Trail in October 2023, I’ve done 855km and 13785 m gained plus a couple of dozen gym sessions. I had some great adventures in that time. I did my ever-highest weekly and monthly kilometre and elevation totals, I did a solo 50k tour of Bangkok, and a solo marathon in Hua Hin, I ran a load of new trails and summitted some new mountains. I mapped out my course re-con runs on the course elevation profile. I’d done the majority of the course at some point. The 2 climbs I hadn’t explored are a bit dangerous to go alone and without any trail maintenance
2 weeks before I went up and trained on some of the course, this gave me a reality check, the section up to Camp Nam Than I did was so steep and difficult, and despite all my training, this section made me feel underprepared. The trail hadn’t been marked or maintained yet and I found myself crawling under bamboo, shimming on logs, climbing past broken ladders and landslides.
The next day I was sick, I tried to go for a hike with my dad to tick off the back to back trails from my plan but broke out in a cold sweat and nausea before we even reached the trail head. I later realized the nipples on my soft flasks were moldy so I suspect that was the reason.
1 week out from the race I got sick again, a head cold. I still ran on Monday, but I missed one run mid-week. By race day eve I was maybe 80%, I did a short shake-out run I felt ok but I didn’t feel strong, definitely not 100%.
The night before the race my foot started to hurt and swell, 3 years ago I stepped on a stick and impaled the sole of my foot, right next to the plantar facia. Sometimes it flares up but not usually like this, usually after a run. I think this flare-up was a combination of things. I was overdoing the electrolytes and carb loading. Being rundown from illness and a couple of months of the hardest training I’ve done to date. Possiblly the new version of my running shoes which have a different feel to the old ones and I have been aggravating it on the treadmill with incline, I did a treadmill incline session on the Monday of race week.
I tried most of my usual tricks in the middle of the night to get my foot right, massage ball, elevation, compression tights, and anti-inflammatory gel, but I didn’t bring any ibuprofen. And the main thing I needed that I didn’t have was time for the swelling to go down.
In the morning the foot was a bit sore and swollen. I thought about not even starting but I got ready to go anyway, maybe once I got moving it would be ok. At 4:30 am as I organized my things, the cord of my pole quiver dug into the zip on the main pocket of my Salomon vest, one of the zip loops pulled out and the zip toggle came off. I thought about pulling out again, but I managed to get it back on but there was still one loop of the zip missing a third of the way along, the zip toggle would come off if passed that point again or the zip would start to pull open from that weak point. Luckily Prae had a sowing kit and sowed over the damaged section to hold it together and I was still left with enough zip to use the pocket.
Right from the start of the race my foot was causing a problem, I stuck to my plan, controlling my heart rate and moving conservatively through the first mountain section. I set my own pace and let anyone that wanted to go past go. I spent some time with a Belgian couple and some runners from Singapore. The first of the 53k races went past me at 7:15 am coming down from the first peak, only 4.2 km in, they were absolutely flying.
I hit the first aid station slightly ahead of the pace I had planned after an hour and 50 minutes but I could really feel my foot, I retied my shoes a bit tighter hoping that might help. I did what I needed to do and was in and out in 3 minutes. The next section was mostly flat through farmland, at first, I tried to ignore my foot and block out the pain, I continued to execute my race plan, mixing walking and running to control my heart rate. But my foot was getting worse and swelling up. Every step was a painful blow, pain occasionally radiating up my leg. I had almost 2 hours during that section to think about it and to try not to think about it. I went back and forth, stop, fight through it, stop. I realized that to continue would be foolish, this was meant to be a challenge but it was also meant to be fun and temporary, didn’t want long-term damage or to have a lasting impact on my running and the rest of my life. I figured there was no prospect of my foot getting better as the race went on and a good chance of it getting worse. Also a strong possibility of something else in the chain that was overcompensating for the foot getting injured too. I thought back to when I had the original injury and how bad it sucked to be on crutches, to not be able to carry my children or run. I thought about what would happen if I went to the point where I couldn’t continue and I was halfway through one of the long mountain sections, how would I get out? The next checkpoint was still close to civilization, an easy place to get a ride back to town.
I ran with a local guy from the 50k for a couple of ks up to the checkout point, more speedy 50k runners zoomed I recognized some of the local runners from other races. I had a good time posing for the cameras and soaking in the beautiful surroundings. I continued to mix run and walk and control my heart rate still making good time. We missed a turn in the fields and spent a few minutes looking for the way. Note to self, next time, when you lose the markers, check the watch map immediately and go back to the last ribbon rather than keep going hoping to pick up a marker.
My decision about my foot was to stop at the checkpoint and assess it there. see if I could do anything to remedy the situation. Again I got to the checkpoint ahead of my race plan. But as soon as I took my shoe off my foot started to swell up even more. I knew my race was over. The first aid team tried magic spray but that wasn’t going to fix this. So, I dropped out. Only half jokingly I asked the race officials if I could tube back to town but that wasn’t an option. The volunteers helped me down to the river and then onto the ferry across and into the ambulance. To the ambo crew’s amusement, the ferry driver charged me 10,000 kip. They also had to pay their way across with some drinks from the aid station. He didn’t have change for me so I sat in the ambulance for a couple of minutes while he went to find some.
My first time in the back of an ambulance, they put the lights on and used the sirens as they belted past all the traffic. I felt pretty silly getting an ambulance with the lights on back to the start/finish line. I lay around with my foot up on a chair at the start line, the first aid volunteers all gathered around wanting to help but there wasn’t really anything they could do, I got another couple of bursts of magic spray. Prae and kids came to pick me up, and we headed back to town for a burger and to spend the day lying around with my foot up. Not how I had hoped my race would go but I live to fight another day.
